COLLECTIBLE CARS CONVERGE FOR CHARITY SHOW ON SUNDAY

Fallbrook Vintage Car Club hosts 48th annual exhibition

It’s a springtime tradition nearly half a century old in Fallbrook: The cars line up on the grass behind Potter Junior High School, representing every decade in automobile history and countless hours of restoration by Fallbrook’s enthusiasts.

Three hundred such classics are expected Sunday for the Fallbrook Vintage Car Club show’s 48th annual appearance. It runs from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. at Potter Junior High School, 1743 Reche Road.

“According to the Antique Automobile Club of America, it’s the longest-running show west of the Mississippi,” said club president Roy Moosa, a real estate broker and auto dealer in Fallbrook. “It’s a great way to spend Memorial Day weekend.”

He said the club has been active in Fallbrook since the early 1960s, and now boasts more than 200 members. Proceeds from the show benefit Fallbrook charities, he said.

Awards will be distributed for 25 juried classes — one for each decade, plus categories dedicated to Thunderbirds, Corvettes, pickups and foreign sedans, among others.

Moosa said the club has grown steadily as the town has attracted more and more retirees.

“Most of us in Fallbrook moved here because it is away from the freeway,” he said. “It’s a slower lifestyle, a downtown that feels like it’s from the 1950s. People just want to capture a lifestyle that is reminiscent of small-town America.”

As the years rolled on, the Fallbrook Vintage Car Club became known for the posters it published each spring to promote the annual show. Framed copies from years past could be found in diners, barbershops and homes across Fallbrook.

Mike Johnson, the club member in charge of posters this year, said only 600 of the collectibles were printed, a good portion of which were sold at the Avocado Festival last month.

As the “poster chairman,” Johnson said, “I select an artist to do the poster, then I select a venue — the scene, so to speak — and lastly, I choose the cars that go on the poster.”

Jim Krogle, a renowned automobile artist from Irvine, has illustrated the posters since 2006, and this year’s features three Fallbrook cars, among them Norm and Nancy Hoskins’ 1956 Lincoln Continental.

Originally from Montana, the low, classic Lincoln appears front and center on the poster — and the T-shirts and other merchandise branded with Krogle’s painting.

“It is one of the unusual, rare cars in American history,” Hoskins said this week. “They were $10,000 at the time. A lot of celebrities owned them — Elvis had one, Frank Sinatra had one.”

The Hoskins’ model was featured in a Motor Trend magazine article years ago. The magazine transported the car and the couple to Palm Springs for a retrospective on Sinatra’s love of the pricey classic.

Hoskins said he has wanted one since he was 11 years old: “My dad had an old 1941 Lincoln Continental with a V-12 engine. So I’ve always liked Continentals,” he said.

Even though Hoskins has put around $50,000 into the car, he said, “I was amazed when they called me and said, ‘Hey, we’re going to put your car on the poster.’”